Spiderstalk

by D. Nathan Hilliard

  Adam frowned at the kid and did as instructed. It was dark, and he had to wipe condensed mist from the glass. Then Billy flicked on the small dome light to help. Even with the dim light it took him a couple of seconds to make out what sprawled in the rear seat…but when he did he took two huge steps back.

  “OH SHIT! OH SH…”

  “Dude!” Billy shushed him, “You wanna wake up the block? Besides, what’s with you? You’ve seen bigger spiders than her.”

  Adam fought to regain his composure, and reminded himself the boy was right. Besides, this time there was glass between him and the enormous arachnid splayed out in the back of the car. And as fearsome as the thing appeared, he couldn’t help but ease closer again to take another look.

  “Wow,” he breathed, “that is still a really big spider.”

  “Yep,” Billy beamed at him.”Her name is Sunspinner. She’s mine.”

  Adam leaned back from the window and gave the kid a look of cautious curiosity.

  “Yours? You mean like one of those companions I hear about?”

  “Exactly right.”

  Adam looked from the kid back to the enormous spider in the back seat. It still squatted there unmoving. And as he gazed at the beast, a sneaking suspicion suddenly entered his mind.

  He looked up and back at the other vehicles to see the others were all getting into the van, with the lone exception of Olivia who stood watching in this direction.

  You knew, didn’t you. He shot a dark look at the distant figure. You realized the boy was desperate and had already broken a bunch of his laws, so I bet you calculated he had also brought his big spider along as well. So you figured once I saw him and crapped my pants, you could say you tried to give me a way to go along on this trip but it didn’t work out. Then I’m safely back at home while you run off to get shot.

  “Look, dude,” Billy started to roll up his window, “I get it…and we’re cool…but I’ve got to get moving. I’m running out of time.”

  Adam stared a second longer at Olivia’s unmoving silhouette, realizing now that the others were in the van she was waiting for his inevitable return.

  You’re slick, girl. He squared his jaw and narrowed his eyes in her direction. But maybe not as slick as you think…

  “Billy, wait,” he interrupted as the boy had the window almost all the way up.

  “Yeah?”

  “If I get in the car and ride with you, can you promise me that…err…Sunspinner…will remain in the back seat? I’ll admit she scares the shit out of me, but if you’ll vouch for her then I’ll trust you.”

  “Seriously?” The kid gave him a look of both surprise, and just a tiny bit of respect. “You sure?”

  It was the tiny bit of respect that sealed the deal. He hadn’t seen a lot of that lately.

  “Yeah,” Adam nodded, his stomach twisting in knots at the idea of getting into the car with the enormous spider. “You betcha. You give me your word Sunspinner will be good, and I’ll ride with you.”

  Billy grinned up at him from the car.

  “You got it, pal. I promise she’ll stay right where she is. Hell, she’s half asleep anyway. Go on around and hop in. Just try not to shake the car too much.”

  Adam took a deep breath and started to do as instructed. He only paused a second at the rear of the car to look back where Olivia waited.

  “It’s okay,” he called softly and waved. “Billy and his companion are giving me a ride.”

  Chew on THAT, Missy! He grinned at the thought. If you’re going to manipulate me, you’re gonna have to up your game a little. I’ve got your back whether you like it or not. Nice try, though.

  Of course now he had to live up to it.

  Adam finished walking around the car and carefully pulled the door open. Billy had turned out the inside light making the back seat pitch black again. He tried to decide whether it made matters better or worse…then decided it simply didn’t matter. This was going to suck either way.

  Taking a deep breath, he carefully slid into the seat while doing his best not to rock the car. Then he pulled the door closed with what he hoped was the right amount of careful force. His hands might have shaken a little as he reached behind him for the shoulder belt, although he realized they were actually closer to the spider while buckling him in.

  He now sat confined in a small car with a two-foot arachnid less than three feet from him.

  “So she was trying to leave you behind, huh?”

  “Wha…?” Adam turned to see the boy giving him a knowing grin. “H-How…I mean…what gives you that idea? You sure you can’t read my mind?”

  Billy actually laughed.

  “Dude, the only thing in the world that could get you in this car right now is proving something to that chick back there, and you know it. You’re sweatin’ like a pig. I already heard you guys are hitched, so it ain’t exactly a surprise she would be trying to keep you out of any action. And naw…I can’t read you. With Sunspinner here, I can tell you’re there but not a lot else.”

  Billy shifted the car into gear and steered it toward the street. He waited until the van pulled up behind before turning onto the road. Then he glanced over at Adam’s sweaty face as the man still struggled to focus out the windshield, instead of on the nightmare behind him.

  He gave Adam a cynical grimace and shook his head. It was another one of those gestures that made him seem older than his years.

  “Chicks,” the boy muttered as he accelerated into the thickening mist. “Behind every guy doing something that he absolutely does not want to do…you’ll find a chick.”

  ###

  “We’re here,” Billy muttered as he eased the Camaro to the side of the road.

  Behind them, the lights of Olivia’s van pulled over to the other side of the highway. The black vehicle slowed and came to a stop directly across the road from them.

  Their headlights lanced out into the thickening mist, revealing the skeletal outlines of the Old Weyrich Bridge. A mid-twentieth century relic, it was a rounded assemblage of girders, rivets, and guardrails completely at odds with the modern, minimalist concrete spans. Its steel beams arced up and away from them, disappearing along with the rest of the bridge into the foggy darkness.

  “This is where Maggie told you to meet her?” Adam whispered. “Why here?”

  “Who knows?” The boy gave a fatalistic shrug. “Could be a lot of reasons. You might want to get out of the car first, because when I do Sunspinner is going to crawl over my seat beside you to come out with me.”

  “Right,” Adam nodded. “Thanks.”

  He had finally started to get used to the idea of the large spider in the back seat, but that had been helped by its immobility. The idea of it crawling over the seat beside him had the man opening the door in a hurry.

  He stepped out into the foggy night and looked around to get his bearings. Outside of the headlights, the world disappeared into misty darkness mere feet from the cars. Silence lay like a blanket over the area. Even the occasional sound of frogs or crickets from the nearby river seemed muted and isolated. It was as if the entire universe had condensed down to the highway, the two vehicles, and the hazy bridge in the headlights.

  A door slammed across the highway and he saw Olivia come around the front of the van and walk in their direction. But the click of her heels on the asphalt slowed as Billy got out of the Camaro. She came to a wary stop in the middle of the road, and Adam realized the big spider must have now crawled out of the car as well.

  “It’s okay,” the boy cautioned. “She’s not going to do anything. I’m going to send her under my car. I just want to have her available if I need her. Okay?”

  Olivia hesitated a second, then nodded.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  For his own part, Adam wondered what Billy thought he might need a two-foot spider for. He and Maggie were supposed to be friends since childhood. She had certainly seemed horrified enough when Billy had been hurt at the theater. On the other
hand, she had also been the primary reason it had happened.

  He came around the front of the Camaro, his magnified shadow slicing through the fog, and joined the other two in the center of the highway.

  “Adam,” Olivia re-situated her bag on her shoulder as he walked up. “I was expecting you to stay in the car. I left the other men in the van for a reason.”

  “Whither thou goest…” he replied. “Besides, I doubt Maggie considers me enough of a threat to be alarmed at my presence.”

  “Perhaps,” she muttered while regarding the bridge with narrowed eyes. “But I confess I’m starting to have serious concerns about this. I make predictions based on rational actors and outcomes, and this situation is beginning to show an uncomfortable shortage of those.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Billy grumbled beside them as he checked the contents of a brown paper sack he had brought with him from the car. Apparently satisfied with its contents, he rolled up the top and nodded toward the bridge. “Let’s get it over with.”

  The boy’s lack of enthusiasm, especially since this was his idea, didn’t do a lot for Adam’s peace of mind.

  “You sure about this?”

  “Yeah. You two stay behind me and everything should be alright.”

  Says the kid who was carted out of a theater nearly dead, Adam groaned internally as they set out.

  Their footsteps echoed off the pavement as they walked up to the murky bridge. The few other night sounds from the river quieted at their approach. The hush became complete. They slowly passed under the first steel beam, and Adam couldn’t help but feel they had now entered uncharted territory. He tried to remember how far down the foggy bridge he could see from the car, and hoped Billy was keeping that in mind as well.

  The headlights were starting to get unnervingly far behind them.

  Fortunately, right about then, Billy held up his hand and brought them to a stop. He closed his eyes, and slowly turned his head one way, then the other. It didn’t take a genius to see he was using senses Adam and Olivia didn’t possess, and they held their peace. He did this for a full thirty seconds before opening his eyes again.

  “Maggie!” he shouted into the night. “I’ve got the ammo you wanted! I also brought you a clean shirt!”

  Nothing.

  Adam strained his hearing, listening for any sound that might be human in the blanketing fog, but there was still nothing. If she were out there, Maggie wasn’t answering.

  “Maggie!”

  Still nothing.

  “Hey,” Adam whispered, “are you sure she’s even here? Maybe she thought things over and changed her mind.”

  For answer, Billy reached into his pocket and fished out a little flashlight. It was one of those little die-cast aluminum jobs that were a lot more powerful than they looked. He clicked the button, creating a fresh new beam to lance out into the fog, and shone it up toward the top of the bridge.

  Maggie’s giant spider glared back down at them from a web she had built between two beams. Somehow, the creature looked even bigger, hanging up there in the gray mist.

  “She’s here,” Billy grunted, “she’s just trying to get a handle on what’s going on.”

  Adam heard the words “I hope” in the boys answer, even though he never used them.

  “Maggie! C’mon! I’ve got your stuff, just like you told me! I even managed to throw in a couple of things to eat too.”

  The darkness swallowed his words without even an echo.

  For a moment, Adam began to think they were wasting their time but that was when Billy finally got his answer.

  “That ain’t all you brought back with you,” came a reply from the darkness. “I thought you promised not to tell anybody.”

  The voice could have come from anywhere in the fog.

  “I promised not to tell the Elders,” Billy called back, “and I haven’t. But you need to talk to somebody. Somebody older who knows more about things than me. And I couldn’t break my promise about the Elders so this was all I could do.”

  Again the night fell quiet.

  “Miss Weston,” Olivia’s sharper voice almost caused Adam to jump, “your friend showed some real courage coming to us, and literally putting himself at our mercy to ask me to do this. It is obvious he places a high value on his friendships. He is very concerned about you, and if what he says is correct he has ample reason to be. We do need to talk, Miss Weston.”

  “Do we now…” the fog replied.

  “Yes. And since I honored young Mr. Clayton’s request to come out here on such short notice, I would appreciate it if you extended me the courtesy of talking to me in person.”

  The night went silent again.

  Adam began to wonder what the hell Maggie could be up to. For some reason, the same woman who shot her way through a squad of police officers to kill him now seemed content to remain in the shadows. What the hell? A quick glance up revealed the massive spider to still be hanging in the same place, so at least there didn’t seem to be a surprise attack coming from that quarter.

  “Miss Weston?”

  “C’mon Maggie,” Billy added, “this ain’t like you. You’re creepin’ me out now. Besides, even if she is Dog People, she’s still a Chieftain…you should show at least a little respect.”

  The night seemed to hold its breath a second longer, but this time their efforts finally got results.

  “Fine!” the voice spat. “If that’s what you want, Dog Woman. I am coming.”

  Ah yes, Adam mused in resignation, now that sounds like the cuddly super-psychopath we’ve all come to know and love. Would it have really killed us to let her stay out there in the fog?

  He held his breath as the distant rap of boot heels on asphalt sounded from the other end of the bridge. They approached with the same sense of unstoppable inevitability that seemed to emanate from everything this woman did. It took almost no time for her rangy outline to appear in the fog. At least this time, Adam noticed with relief, she didn’t have a gun in her hand.

  A few seconds later his relief turned into shock as Maggie stalked into full view. Beside him, Billy closed his eyes and groaned. Even Olivia gave a gasp of dismay.

  Now he understood why she had wanted to remain concealed in the fog.

  Maggie was a horror show.

  ###

  The girl looked like something out of a nightmare.

  Under the filthy spikes of her shortened hair, the entire right side of her face was a diseased mask. It was a massive scab with cracks that bled and oozed pus. A raised, red stripe of infection ran along the border of dried blood, with scarlet tendrils beginning to work their way into the undamaged skin. Her right eye was a solid, bleary red and Adam wondered if she could even see out of it. Her right arm was in the same state, and the dark stains covering the shredded clothes on that side of her body told him all he needed to know about what lay underneath. He realized she must be in enormous pain…yet not even a hint of it showed in what was left of her face.

  “Alright,” she snapped, “I’m here. Say your piece.”

  Olivia stared at her for another second in open shock before speaking.

  “My God,” she breathed, “didn’t they even clean your wounds?”

  “We ain’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment. Now let’s get on with it. I’ve got things to do.”

  Olivia blinked, and finally recovered her composure.

  “The only thing you need to do, Miss Weston,” she stated, “is get in your friend’s car and come back to Hallisboro with us. From there I will personally drive you to Houston where we have a state of the art infirmary and the resources to treat you properly. You need medical attention immediately.”

  “I’ve been sick before. Is that what you came to talk to me about?”

  “You’re not sick…you’re dying! Do you understand that? You have a massive infection that is already developing into sepsis and will soon be gangrene. I commend you on your ability to even walk in this condition, but this is a s
ituation where strength won’t save you. You need help!”

  The undamaged side of Maggie’s face twisted into a mirthless grin as she regarded the dark haired woman.

  “You want to treat me? Seriously? You do realize you’re talking to somebody who was raised to kill you from birth. The Elders were really looking forward to turning me loose on your raiders when they came this summer.”

  “There will be no raiders this summer.”

  “No?”

  “No. The war is over,” Olivia replied. “Or it will be come Saturday. As for now we have a ceasefire, you are hurt, and I am a medic. The sentence imposed on you by your Elders does not apply to me.”

  “Listen to her, Maggie,” Billy urged. “She’s right. We can stop now. What’s done is done, we can’t change it, but it don’t have to be like that no more. Let her help you.”

  Maggie’s good eye swiveled from Olivia to Billy.

  “You want me to trust her?”

  “Yes!”

  “You have my word as Chief Antonio’s second,” Olivia insisted, “I wish you no harm. Like Billy said, what’s done is done. I only want to help you.”

  The bloody girl looked from her, to Billy, back to her, then down at the ground …and for one brief moment Adam saw something other than the obsessed determination that normally hardened her eyes. For the briefest second, she looked unsure.

  Then she squared her jaw and looked up at Olivia again.

  “Okay, we’ll see about that,” Maggie answered. “I’ve got a piece of metal stuck in the back of my shoulder. I can’t get it out, and it’s interfering with my arm. We can talk while you remove it.”

  Olivia looked at the girl in surprise.

  “Here? Right now?

  “Right now. I still got something I’ve got to take care of, and it will go a lot easier if I can use this arm better.”

  “Very well,” Olivia agreed with obvious reluctance. “You’re asking me to perform surgery right here, so I’ll need a couple of things. I will have to call back to the van for my medical kit.”